


Mind and Body

by MercurialComet



Series: RWBY: MYRD [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Aura - Freeform, Dialogue Heavy, Fantasy Science, Gen, Literary Theory, Oscar is a Farm Boy, Science, Training, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialComet/pseuds/MercurialComet
Summary: A rewrite of the end of training scene in v5, c4 because I cannot stand the Aura rewrite. I also overthink a lot of things.
Series: RWBY: MYRD [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984300
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5





	Mind and Body

**Author's Note:**

> Things that have changed here:
> 
> \- Jaune has his Semblance and it's different from canon. I do have a few scenes about this I may write later.  
> \- No Aura retcon. (Edit: I've had a lovely conversation in the comments, and I've also been thinking about it, and I first want to apologize to Monty Oum's spirit for what was here earlier. It's hella rude of me to presume that I know/knew what he had in mind for the series. Secondly, as of 10/27/2020, I'm using the idea of the "Aura Cloak" being a toggle-able ability, which was commented by WearyCurmudgeon. Thanks for letting me use this idea and allowing me to stream of consciousness again.)  
> \- I'm saying "Hunter(s)" instead of "Huntsman/men" and "Huntress(es)" because to me if color is so important after art was so horribly treated, why not name a force to protect people after hunter green and make it more obvious? "Blacksmith(s)" follows this same line of logic. Everything has the added benefit of being gender-neutral and not unwieldy to say.

Letting Ozpin train Ruby sucks.

The moment that Oscar is allowed control of his body again, he collapses out of sheer exhaustion. His heavy panting makes him barely able to hear everyone’s footsteps as they run over to check on him. ”Hey,” Ruby’s voice is right next to his ear. “Are you okay?”

A water bottle is held out in front of him, and Oscar takes it and drains the bottle. When he’s done, he drops it on the ground. “How”-he pants, still somehow out of breath-“is this so exhausting?”

“Your body isn’t used to this kind of training,” Ren says, and when Oscar looks up, he can see the Hunter-in-training just sitting there, legs crossed, looking poised. “You didn't activate your Aura Cloak. Not to mention that your Aura isn’t fully unlocked yet.”

“Unlocked.” Is that some sort of code? City thing? “What does that even mean?”

“Do you know what your Semblance is?!” Nora asks, and Oscar shakes his head.

Jaune opens his mouth, but then he closes it. “I- uh- I only know about the theory of Aura and Aura Cloaks from a history perspective,” he admits.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Celes says, reopening his scroll to read some academic article, “considering that’s like, the only way we have to research it right now.”

Oscar’s headache finally goes away, but at the speed that everyone’s talking at, it may come back if he doesn’t get any answers. “Is no one going to answer my question?”

“Sorry, little green”-Celes shrugs-“there’s not much of an answer we can give you, I think. All we know for sure about Aura is that everyone has it, Grimm don’t have it, and that it’s less of a static force or shield, and more of a flowing organism itself.”

Oscar looks around at all of the Hunters-in-training as they look at Celes as if he’s speaking a different language. “What.”

Celes glances around the group. “Okay, for your purposes, yes, Aura is a way to defend yourselves and augment your abilities, but it’s a lot more than that in almost every aspect.” He taps his scroll for a bit and then places it on the ground as it projects a clean board for him to write and sketch on. “I think I have the gist of the common theory down, one of my classmate’s specialties was Aura and It’s Mechanical Usage. Basically, everyone has enough Aura to fill”-he used air quotes on the word ‘fill’-”their heart. Theoretically, that’s why the weight of a body is less immediately after the person dies, but Aura doesn’t technically take up volume and space so it isn’t matter, and that’s just quantum mecha-”

“Celes?” Ruby cuts him off, placing a hand on the Faunus’ shoulder. “Breathe. Also, please get to a different point, no one here understands quantum mechanics.”

Oscar silently thanks her, because he was already getting lost again. Maybe he should be taking notes.

“Right.” Celes nods, starting to sketch on the board in front of him. “Anyway, Aura isn’t recorded until a generation after the first found ancestral documents, meaning that it’s an evolution of humanity, not a trait. Some theorists believe that Aura is the first Semblance, but most theorists agree that now Aura is practically a common denominator for everyone. The idea of unlocking an Aura is tied into the idea of Semblances.”

Ren looks interested. “So, when you unlock your Semblance, you unlock your Aura?”

“Yes and no?” Celes answers. He draws a t-chart and labels one side ‘yes’ and the other side ‘no’. “Again, different theories say different things, and I only have the basic knowledge of the basic theories because I focus on how Aura interacts with Crystals and Dust. On the yes side, there’s the few historical records of people who have unlocked their Semblances, whose bodies were then able to generate a greater amount of Aura to be used in ways that are similar to modern Hunters.” He writes down the main points as he’s speaking. “There’s also the Aura energy theory, which basically goes that since almost all Auras are manipulating some form of energy, then a person who’s unlocked their Aura simply has trained their body into producing more Aura for greater consumption because no energy is created or destroyed, and all that jazz. Or that the excess Aura is a byproduct of the reaction that sparks a person’s Semblance.”

Nora pops up on his other shoulder, and it’s a testament to how focused Celes is that he doesn’t even flinch at her suddenly being there. “How about the ‘no’ side?”

“Uh, I think that’s both the ‘Heart of Aura Theory’ and ‘Latent Semblance Theory’, the idea that a person’s Semblance is always there, but it needs to be activated under the right circumstances-”

“Oh, like the silver-eyed warriors!” Oscar says, and Celes looks confused for a few moments before he frowns.

“No more secrets,” he says, glancing around the group. Everyone guiltily looks away. “I’ll ask you guys later. But yes, if that works for you, think about it like that. There’s also what I think is the best argument for ‘no’, and that’s just simply the reactions of Crystals and Dust to Aura. People already have at least a micro amount of Aura in them, and items with Crystals and Dust work near perfectly.”

“Alright,” Jaune starts when Celes is quiet for a while, “but what does this have to do with Aura being an organism?”

“Oh, right. That.” Celes clears the board and thinks for a few moments. “Well, a person’s Aura is best suited for that person because it grows up with them. If you didn’t have your Aura, your Semblance could possibly wreak havoc in you and cause horrible injury depending on what it specifically is. There have been ideas about transplanting Aura, but a lot of the theory behind it is shaky and even those in favor of it are very cautious about how it should be done. Basically, ‘unlocking’ your Aura is just giving it space to grow and get used to you. If you battle a lot, your Aura will be more suited for combat. Engineers have Aura that help them weld or stay focused to avoid costly mistakes. It just depends on the person. And an Aura doesn’t even have to be unlocked to start showing traits of adaptability, especially when trained and honed in on by it's user. There's ways in which Aura can Cloak and defend people from harm, which is the most common way for most everyone, that's more so considered another evolution- there's Aura that Arcs and augments attacks even more, there's Aura that Senses-”

Everyone looked at Celes as he drew complex diagrams and equations from mostly memory, pulling up a second projection on his phone to look up ones that he didn’t remember or weren’t sure of.

“Is he always like this?” Jaune asked Ruby, stage whispering. Celes didn’t even seem to hear him.

“Yeah,” Ruby said, sighing. “He’s always been pretty interested in stuff like this, although it's not nearly as bad as what he can tell you off the top of his head about Dust and Crystals.”

Ren cleared his throat, regaining everyone’s attention. “So, does this mean that the Semblance defines a person’s personality? Or is it the other way around?”

Celes groaned. “That’s a philosophy question, and one I am not even remotely qualified to answer. The science backs up either side anyway.”

“Either way,” Nora cuts in, “it’s hard to know when you know sometimes. Ren’s kicked in during extreme stress.”

“And mine kicked in during training one day,” Ruby admitted.

“I found out when someone lied to me,” Celes said.

Oscar looked at Nora and Jaune. “What about you two?”

Jaune looked uncomfortable. “My sister-”

“Struck by lightning! Didn’t die. Crazy Thursday!”

There’s a long silence after Nora interrupts Jaune, with both of them and Ren looking somewhat off. Ruby claps her hands together. “Let’s get back to training!” she shouts, and Oscar groans.

“Do we have to?”

Ren chuckles. “You should probably take a break,” he says, slowly getting up. “You and Ruby did just spend a lot of time with hand to hand combat.”

Ruby pouts. “But then that only leaves you three! Who’s gonna be left out?”

“I was actually thinking that Celes could join us.”

Celes looks up from his scroll. “Huh?”

“Blacksmiths are just a more specialized form of Hunters, so he still needs to keep up his training,” Ren says. “I can train with Nora while he and Jaune spar.” He turns to face the Blacksmith. “Is that alright?”

“Uh- uh- yeah?” Celes says, quickly closing down his scroll. “I mean, I still need to stretch and stuff, but I’m down with some sparring-”

“I’ll help with that then,” Ren says. “The rest of you guys can do whatever you need to get ready, or relax,” he added, staring at Ruby.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

* * *

“Are you guys ready!?” Ruby shouts, everyone watching from the porch of the house as Jaune and Celes face off against each other.

Jaune held Crocea Mors in its unsheathed state, out in front of him. The sun lightly glinted off of the sword and his chest-plate, and it was something that Oscar was somewhat familiar with.

Celes about to fight was new to him. He removed the thin summer cloak he had for Mistral’s weather, leaving his arms and wings open thanks to his racer-back tank. The dark blue of the tank matched the thigh length combat shorts he wore under a sarong colored the same dark gold as his wings that apparently worked as a ‘combat skirt’. With simple black shoes and his own weapon, Paradise Muse, in hand, he seemed about as ready as he was going to be.

Oscar looked on excitedly as Ruby shouted out the rules of the spar. No deliberate maiming, tournament rules, fight until one person goes down to 15% of their Aura left, which was apparently the ‘Heart of Aura’ that Celes was talking about earlier.

“Ready!” Jaune brandished his shield. Celes twirled his crook. “Begin!”

Celes reacted first, the dark blue and gold crook glowing slightly purple as it bent itself into a bow, the gold tipped ends glowing light blue as a thin streak of light connected them as a bowstring. He quickly draws the bow, and an arrow in the same light blue forms itself before he fires it. Jaune blocks it with his shield, running forward with it covering his torso and the lower part of his head. He blocks one more arrow before he reaches Celes, the Blacksmith already backing up to try and get distance between the two of them. Jaune managed to get one free sword strike in before Celes was out of his range, Paradise Muse reverting back into a crook.

With a flap of his wings, Celes threw himself forward with a strong swipe, again catching Jaune’s shield. With a loud ring, the two found themselves in a standoff for a few moments before they both pushed off, with Jaune rolling backwards and Celes stabilizing himself in the air.

Jaune waved his sword up at where Celes hovered. “How am I supposed to fight him when he’s up there?”

Celes drew his bow, aiming it. “Let me land and you won’t have to try and find out.”

Jaune thought about it for a few moments before backing up slightly, keeping Crocea Mors at his opponent. Celes floated down, releasing the arrow the moment he touched the ground. It catches Jaune on the chest-plate, and as he staggers back from the force of the arrow, Celes flicks a switch on the sturdy part of the bow. The “string” goes from purely light blue to a mix of light blue and yellow, and the arrow that appeared crackled with a different mixture of energy. Jaune held his shield up just in time to block the brunt of the shot, but the yelp that he let out lets everyone know that the electricity Celes added to the bow was doing it’s job.

Oscar took a quick look at Ruby’s scroll, where she had it set up to gauge everyone’s Aura levels. He was surprised to see that even though Celes had been doing pretty well, Jaune’s bar was still just barely above halfway full.

_Ah, I’m glad to see that Mr. Arc’s Aura is still wildly plentiful._

A shout brings Oscar’s attention back to the spar, with Jaune rolling under another lightning-charged arrow as he sprints towards Celes. The Faunus tries to draw another arrow, but Jaune swings his shield and hits the archer out of position before striking with his sword again, dealing a heavy blow that forces Celes to back up and revert the bow back into a crook, the dark gold hook crackling with a yellow glow. When the sword and crook clashed, both of them grunted from the force of their blows, but lightning crackled down the blond’s sword and shocked him, forcing the two to back off again.

Celes pushed his advantage, thrusting forward with the hook. Jaune sidestepped it and hit Celes with the pommel of his sword. Celes swayed for a moment, blinking quickly before swinging wildly, completely missing the blond.

Jaune struck twice more, the first hit knocking Celes off balance, and the second one actually sweeping the Blacksmith’s legs out from under him, causing him to fall to the side and groan.

Ruby’s scroll beeped as Celes’ Aura reached unsafe levels, and with that, Jaune disengaged and sighed, sheathing Crocea Mors. “Hey,” he says, holding out a hand towards Celes, “Are you okay?”

Celes groaned again as Jaune helped him pick himself up. “How do you guys keep on doing this?”

“With a lot of practice and experience,” Ren remarks, holding out a water bottle for both of them. “It sounds like you need some more training.”

“Please don’t let the old man hear that,” Celes pants, eagerly reaching out for it. “He’s gonna demand that I go through remedial classes again.”

Oscar shuddered at the idea of going through remedial Hunter classes. “Maybe we should take a break now,” he says, noticing Jaune wincing as sparks danced through his hair. “It’s lunch time anyway, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I should probably mention Celes' inspirations:
> 
> Yes, he has two. His whole family will be based off of 2 different figures of legend/mythology who overlap in a specific way. Celes' are the archangel Gabriel and the Greek god Apollo, both of whom overlap at the protection of something young (Gabriel is a shepherd and in some cases is a protector of baby Jesus, and Apollo is the protector of young men). Celes gets the color blue, his wings, and the (shepherd's) crook form of Paradise Muse from Gabriel, and the color gold, his thirst for knowledge, and the bow form of Paradise Muse from Apollo.
> 
> His colors are Gamboge and Dark Cornflower Blue, and his emblem is a simple outline of an eye looking over a person.
> 
> Both influences come together on his Semblance, Heaven's Sight, and the name of his weapon: Paradise Muse.


End file.
